Is Teladoc (TDOC) A Smart Long-Term Buy?

ClearBridge Investments, an investment management firm, published its “Mid Cap Growth Strategy” first quarter 2021 investor letter – a copy of which can be downloaded here. During the first quarter, the ClearBridge Mid Cap Growth Strategy outperformed the benchmark Russell Midcap Growth Index. You can view the fund’s top 5 holdings to have a peek at their top bets for 2021.

ClearBridge Investments, in its Q1 2021 investor letter, mentioned Teladoc Health, Inc. (NYSE: TDOC), and shared their insights on the company. Teladoc Health, Inc. is a Purchase, Harrison, New York-based healthcare company that currently has a $23.6 billion market capitalization. Since the beginning of the year, TDOC delivered a -23.61% return, while its 12-month returns are down by -2.81%. As of June 02, 2021, the stock closed at $152.74 per share.

Here is what ClearBridge Investments has to say about Teladoc Health, Inc. in its Q1 2021 investor letter:

Teladoc is a leading play on telemedicine, a hyper growth market with significant opportunity for increases in utilization accelerated by the COVID19 environment. The company is well-positioned for this evolution in treatment after years of work building out its network of doctors and payors. Its recent merger with Livongo expands the company’s customer base and increases the number of products to cross-sell such as holistic, chronic disease and second opinion services. International expansion is another significant opportunity.”

Doctor Specialties with Best Lifestyle

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Our calculations show that Teladoc Health, Inc. (NYSE: TDOC) does not belong in our list of the 30 Most Popular Stocks Among Hedge Funds. As of the end of the first quarter of 2021, Teladoc Health, Inc. was in 42 hedge fund portfolios, compared to 50 funds in the fourth quarter of 2020. TDOC delivered a -22.06% return in the past 3 months.

The top 10 stocks among hedge funds returned 231.2% between 2015 and 2020, and outperformed the S&P 500 Index ETFs by more than 126 percentage points. We know it sounds unbelievable. You have been dismissing our articles about top hedge fund stocks mostly because you were fed biased information by other media outlets about hedge funds’ poor performance. You could have doubled the size of your nest egg by investing in the top hedge fund stocks instead of dumb S&P 500 ETFs. Here you can watch our video about the top 5 hedge fund stocks right now. All of these stocks had positive returns in 2020.

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Disclosure: None. This article is originally published at Insider Monkey.